Monday, February 16, 2015

These weeks just go by so rapidly. We had some referrals given to us by ward mission leaders, but there were some challenges finding the addresses. So we now have more information and as a result, more people to contact this week.
We have a correlation meeting with our sisters on Monday mornings. On Monday afternoon Sis. Castleton had a sister come to the house to do some additional family history research. Then we had dinner with our new ward mission leaders family from our own ward. Their children are growing up and the family is expecting a new addition any day. After our meal and our presentation to the family the oldest daughter in the family gave Sister Castleton a rose. She just turned twelve and the Young Women gave her a rose to celebrate. What a sweet thought, such a sweet girl.
Tuesday was a little more restful prep day. We really need some time to really relax so we have the stamina to get through each week. We had a nice visit with a Primary Pres.and her family in the evening and talked about being good missionaries.
Wednesday was our last district meeting for this transfer, for some reason, transfer day is next Thursday. We know now that we are losing one Zone leader and it looks to us like we will lose our District leader as well. It feels like one of our sisters is vulnerable for transfer. Every transfer brings changes, but we just accept them and move ahead.
Ruth had a couple more family history sessions with members coming to our home to research and scan some documents. We then had a nice meal Thursday night with a family in our own ward. Their oldest son went on a mission but returned early. This happens from time to time because these younger missionaries just do not adjust automatically to the rigors of missionary life. It must be a problem because I have seen some articles that talk about how to be accepting and understanding of those who return early. We have a young man who came home from his mission because of a health problem. It was exciting yesterday to visit with him and find out he has clearance to return to his mission today. Hopefully he will be able to serve without more health issues
We had previously visited a member in the nursing home. We stopped at their home and the brother was home but doesn't seem to be doing really well. He has some heart problems and breathing problems. He knew my uncle Wayne and aunt Jo in Modesto, California. On our way home we stopped to see another sister who is fairly new to the area and had a great visit.
Friday was kind of a service day. Ruth took Kaylene to the Logan Family Search library and got her started on some projects for our families. George took a fellow we still have contact with that moved to Logan and needed some help during the same time. Realizing the end of the month is close, we made an appointment with one of our families and went home teaching in the afternoon. We had a wonderful discussion about faith and conversion.
The Fourth Ward has a tradition of having an adult retreat with a meal then the couples go to the temple the next morning. They invited us to the dinner and asked us to talk about marriage and love. I talked about some of the principles while Ruth talked about some of the experiences we have had as a couple raising our family. It was a very nice evening.
We arose early Saturday morning and went to Salt Lake for the Roots Tech Conference. In our last senior couples meeting they talked about family history as an activation tool and told us our area Seventy will be presenting information to the stake presidents about family history. Our stake president has already indicated an interest in doing more so we wanted to be more prepared. Our area Seventy training meeting is Thursday night this coming week. We arrived early and heard Donny Osmond talk about his family and some of the interesting traits he inherited from his family members.. He has been in show business for 51 yeas. Pretty amazing for our time, Al Fox Carraway is a blogger whose presentation was very eye-opening as to how people need to feel accepted as they come into the Gospel. Noel Picus Pace was a delightful presenter as she talked about dedication to the goal of winning a medal at the Olympics and how important her family was in that process.
Elder Neil L Andersen then closed that session with a talk about the Temple Challenge and the blessings available to those who work on that challenge.

The leadership training was by Elder Allan Packer, Elder Whitney Clayton, and Elder Kent Richards. The focus was on the Family History Spiritual Passport. The focus is find a name, take the name to the temple, go as a family when possible; then teach someone else about how to find family names so they can enjoy the blessings available. This is in addition to Elder Anderson's youth challenge last year to find as many names as you do baptisms for in the temple.
Elder Quintin L Cook was the closing speaker and talked about the Father's Plan is about Families. He had his children and grandchildren help him with the presentation. It was very good.
The treat at the end of the conference as the cast of Studio C performed for a while and talked about the show and answered some tweeted questions about the cast and the show. The closing presentation was David Archuleta who sang a few numbers. What a wonderful example and a great voice for a young man.It was a long day but a good day. We celebrated Valentine's Day with a meal at Wendy's on the way home. Not the most romantic but a great day.